FMA Shuffle Drabbles
by Polarized Penmanship
Summary: A collection of Fullmetal Alchemist Shuffle Drabbles for both the original and Brotherhood, posted as I write. Each has it's own rating and warnings, the highest rating being T.
1. Eyes Open

**A/N: I liked the idea of doing these, but they are HARD. For me. I have no idea how many these there will end up being, whenever I finish one I'll post it.**

**Rating may change. Each Drabble will have an individual rating and warnings.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. All rights go to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.**

**Enjoy!:**

**Eyes Open by Taylor Swift**

**Rating: K+ for suggestion of previous violence**

**Warning: Really short.**

Winry was always scared.

It wasn't always like that. When they were little, Winry was never scared. Sometimes she would think they were stupid, but she never truly felt fear.

But nowadays, whenever Ed and Al walked up to her house, clanking and waving, she never thought,

"Ed and Al are here! It's been so long, it's good to see them!"

No. The first thought that always went through her head was,

"Dear Lord, please let them be alright." (1)

She would put on a smile and go through the formalities of their visits, like a game.

Greet them happily.

Freak out over Ed's automail.

Feed them.

Repair automail.

Watch as they walk away, never looking back, not knowing when she would see them again.

While she did all of this, her mind was elsewhere. When Ed walked up the gravel road, she would check for a limp.

When he showed her his automail, she would look for bruises on his torso.

When he ate, she noted how thin he was.

Then, with all this in mind, Winry would make the best automail she was capable of, hoping that, somehow, it would make a difference, stop him from getting hurt, and in turn, protect Al as well.

To Ed, automail was a burden of past sins.

To Winry, it was a warning. Telling him to stay on his toes. To remember her, remember that he couldn't die because he had a family.

Because Ed never let family down, right?

**See? Short.**

**(1) I don't know if Winry's religious or what, but sinice this is fanfiction she is here.**


	2. Somebody That I Used To Know

**A/N: Hey, Minna. **

**I think that means friends in Japanese. Or viewers. I'm not sure, I learnt it from a TV on Pokemon Black Version. **

**Anyway, here's the next one! It's much longer, (3 1/2 times O_O) so I hope you enjoy it!**

**Somebody I Used to Know by Gotye**

**Rating: T for swearing and angsty Ed**

**Warnings: Past EdWin, rather long, and Winry being a bitch to Edo-chan.**

Ed swore as he tripped over a box in the hall. He had been meaning to unpack it for weeks, and had never gotten around to it. The box was sort of a taboo for him. Opening it would be painful and would remind him of everything he had ever done wrong.

Considering he was living on the ground floor of an apartment in the dregs of Central, that was a lot of things that had gone wrong.

Ed held his throbbing foot, still swearing violently,

"Fuck! What the hell is in that fucking box? A brick? Why haven't I felt with this piece of shit yet anyway?"

Ed flung open the tattered box in a rage, pulling out the top few items without a second glance.

Alchemy book.

Hair ties.

Old picture that used to hang in the dinning room.

A ziplock of spoons. Hey, he'd been looking for that, eating cereal with a fork was kind of hard.

And then, a battered binder.

Ed paused, biting his lower lip. The binder wasn't anything special itself, just a thick, brown cardboard sleeve. It was what lay inside it that Ed didn't like.

He sat back on his heels and opened the binder.

It wasn't a binder, it was an album. Full to the brim with full-color photos, depicting past days.

Ed ran his hand across them, picking up dust on the tips of his fingers. The first page was pictures of Trisha, smiling brilliantly into the camera, wearing a flowing white dress.

The same dress Winry had worn at her wedding.

Ed flipped the page, already engrossed in the paper memories, watching as the drew out time for him again, as the retold everything that had happened to himself, Alphonse and Winry.

The pages from Trisha's wedding on held pictures of Ed and Al, and occasionally Winry, as they grew up.

A picture of Ed's entire family, Hohenheim's face blurred from water damage (1).

A picture of six-year-old Ed andfive-year-old Al, with Trisha.

A picture that Izumi had taken of the boys as they proudly showed off that night's dinner.

Then there was a gap in time.

The next picture was one of Ed as he clumsily tried to feed himself a meal with only one arm.

Then, a huge gap again.

A really big one this time.

The next slipcover contained a picture of a bright, sunny day in Resembool, with a couple smiling widely into the camera as the sun gleamed off their white clothes and golden hair, hands held up near their faces showing off plain gold bands encircling their third fingers. (2)

Ed stared at the photo for a while, only turning the page when a glossy tear dropped onto the photo.

The next picture was one of Winry holding a small blue bundle to her cheek, while Ed was sprawled on the floor in relief.

The next was basically the exact same, except that the bundle was pink, and a small boy had appeared at Winry's side.

Ed flipped to the last page, and found the final photo to be as gut-wrenching as the first.

It was the picture they had taken on the day of their fifth anniversary. The picture had captured bits of Al, Mei, Paninya, and Garfiel, but smack dab in the centre was the imprint of a past Ed and Winry, holding their kids and smiling madly.

Ed bit his lip, staring at his carefree, oblivious self.

He slammed the book shut, and stuffed it back in the box.

He was left kneeling in the middle of the barren hallway once more, with only the steady ticking of a clock for company. He stood slowly, and as he did, a slip of paper slid from his lap. Picking it up out of curiosity, it appeared blank, but as Ed flipped it over, on the other side was written,

Ed

The handwriting was painfully familiar, but Ed opened the letter anyway, and almost have up on the first line.

_Hey Edo,_

_I was hoping you'd pick this up one day, you see me flipping through it all the time; you could show an interest in your wife's hobbies sometimes you know!_

_Anyway, by the time you actually find this letter, our little Sasha will probably be a teenager! I know you don't care much for photos, but you could open this thing once in a while, you know? Anyway, I thought I'd make this little album here out of all the old photos Granny had lying around the house, as a anniversary gift. I never really got around to giving it to you though, so now it's just collecting dust. _

_This album is about love. Our love, because you know it started when we were kids. _

_It's also about family. Our kids, Rayden and Sasha.(3)_

_So brush the dust off of it. Promise you'll take good care of it, because family and love means the most to us all._

_Happy Fifth Anniversary!_

_Love, Winry_

Ed crumpled the letter in his hand.

"Family and love means the most to us all...sure Win, it means the most to us all, except you. If it meant the most to you, then you wouldn't have ditched the kids on Al and run off with that bastard!"

He tossed it violently into the trash, followed by the entire album.

As far as he was concerned, he had never been a married man.

**Much longer! Remember, reviews are love! **

**(1) I know Hohenheim took this picture with him, but I'm sure there was more than one copy...**

**(2) I don't know if it should say 'third finger' or 'fourth finger', but since the thumb isn't a finger I went with third. It's the finger that wedding rings go on, but you probably figured it out. **

**(3) I got the kids names from Ed and Winry's parents: Winry's Dad's name was Urey or something so it kinda sounds like Ray, and Sasha is Sara and Trisha combined.**


	3. Be Yourself

**A/N: Hey, minna! It's been awhile. I finally got my computer back! Isn't that great? Not really. Now I'm on vacation so I don't even have access to it. Yes. Polar Pen fails, and is writing this drabble on her phone in an airplane. WEEEeeeEEEe!**

**Anyway, I have never heard this song before, so this one was a bit of a challenge. Don't expect perfection. However, I LOVE how this one turned out. It's rather long.**

Be Yourself by Audioslave

Rating: K+ to be safe.

Warnings: Ed angst...(? Sort of...?), Royai, naive Winry.

When Al looked at Ed, he could see the little boy who had been broken so many times that he couldn't even feel anymore. He saw tears run down Ed's face when he slept, he saw the hollow fear behind those brilliant gold eyes. Al didn't think that Ed was capable of being simply happy, even when they had restored their bodies. Ed was broken, but at least he was dealing with it, right?

Winry was considered naive, even by herself. Sometimes she wondered if it was her naivety that made her see that Ed was happy. She argued with herself, saying that there was no way that anyone who was truly sad would be able to laugh at catching the bride's bouquet at a wedding, full of flowers so much like the ones he had lay on his mother's grave the day before. Nobody who was truly miserable would be able to smile so truly when his old friends announced their engagement. After Riza's wedding, Winry thought that there was simply no way on earth that Ed couldn't be content with his life.

Rose thought that Ed had finally found peace once Al had been restored. She knew that he would never be able to see the light of God, but she was still relieved when Al had waved to her from the train platform. She truly thought Ed had found salvation from the nightmares in his head and dreams. She wouldn't need to pray for him anymore.

Hohenheim had been able to see that Ed was curling in on himself, hiding from the rest of the world. He had thought that his son was hiding from the images of amethyst eyes that sometimes flashed in his own golden irises.

Riza had once thought that Ed was in love with Winry. She had also once thought that he would make a good family man. After the boy defeated Father on the Promised Day, Riza had thought that he would never be able to love anyone again, judging by the way he stared at Al's empty shell. Now, Riza thought that he was simply too scared for others to allow himself to love.

Ed was beginning to fear for his sanity. He had been through so much, made so many memories, met so many people, but, somehow, nobody in his entire life had managed to meet the real him.

"Maybe you should try to take off all those masks."

Ed nodded. Yeah, the masks. The one he used to get people to pity him, the one to hide all the bad that had ever happened, the one to stop people from worrying, all of them. But if he threw them away, what would his face look like? It would be blank, no?

"You just have to be yourself."

Ed nodded to the caring face in the mirror, and it smiled, tossing chocolate hair over its shoulder. Yeah. That's right. Myself. Who was that again?

Trisha smiled, and stroked her son's hair as he collapsed onto the bathroom counter.

**A/N: O_o**

**Yeah. I told you not to expect much. I hope the ending didn't confuse anyone, Ed just kinda went insane. Remember! Review are love!**


	4. Let it Burn

**A/N: I'm sorry if this is confusing, I just wrote this in ten minutes because I feel obliged to actually upload something. Enjoy.**

* * *

**Let it Burn by Red (Nightcore version!)**

**Rating: T**

**Warnings: War, Roy angst. (Yay! Roy Angst!) This is also an attempted at first person, so hang on. **

**At first, it had been dust. Dust billowing in the air; dust coating your throat, all for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, it was hard for dust to take to the air when it had been turned to mud by the blood that constantly stained the ground. Now, the mud was being turned into ashes, along with my soul. Riza says that she likes guns because she can't feel her victim die. Well, I can't feel my victims either, at least not like how she means. At least Maes says I shouldn't humanly be able to. Well, I'm not really human anymore. You can't be human without a soul.**

**I'm just a bystander. The flames are the real murderers, they tear the air apart with their viciousness. They hunt down the trembling human flesh, they feel the sick pleasure as that skin and muscle writhes and bubbles; as the blood boils; as the eyes steam. The flames are the ones who feel the victims die. I'm just a bystander. A twisted bystander who does nothing to stop them. I'm just a bystander...I'm just a bystander...**

**But I'm not just a bystander.**

**I question myself. It's human nature to question your actions, but I'm not human anymore. **

**Will you wait until it all burns down?**

**What right does a useless, pathetic creature like myself, who can't even be called human, have to question themselves?**

**Will you hide until it all burns down?**

**I can hear the whispers. They call me a monster. Not a hero. Not a human. I disagree, I think I deserve less than the title of monster. A monster is the bystander, the one who does nothing.**

**Will it hurt when it all burns down?**

**"He's nothing but a killing machine."**

**"He scares me. What if he turns, like Kimbly?"**

**"I swear, he has no morals. Sure, this is war, but he's way too into it."**

**Will you fight when it all burns down?**

**I want Riza to understand that I'm not human. She doesn't get it. She's blind to the things they say. Maes is, too. He tells me to hang on.**

**Will you stand when it all burns down?**

**Hang on to what? The ledge of humanity, of my soul, of the rest of the world, is far above my grasp already. Nothing can save me.**

**Will you love when it all burns down?**

**Riza says she loves me. So does Maes. They say we're in this nightmare together. But they're still human. They're still bystanders. Their guns are still the murderers.**

**Will it end when it all burns downs?**

**They don't know what it feels like to be fire; to be a beast; to burn someone to death. To devour someone as their skin turns to ash, it's something they don't understand.**

**Will you just let it all burn down? **

**They don't understand that I can't do anything about it. They don't understand. I'm so deep into this abyss of my missing soul, that's there's no way to crawl my way back up. **

**They don't understand that I'm drowning on the flaming blood of the innocent people I've killed with my hands.**

**The city smolders beneath my feet. The sky is blocked by the smoke. A man dies, and another is murdered. A third simply lets his soul go. **

**In it all, the city burns to ash, and I let it burn. **

**I'm not alive to stop it anymore.**


	5. Breaking the Habit

**Here. Have some fluff as I keep depressing you guys with insane Ed and suicidal Roy. *Shoves sparkling fluff at face* Are you happy now? This will cheer you up.**

**FOOLS!**

**More angst hahahahahahahahahaha **

**Breaking the Habit by Linkin Park**

**Rating: K+ **

**Warnings: This is sort of set in the Bluebird's Illusion **(a Fullmetal Alchemist game, if you don't know about it: as Luka would put it, go Google it. Don't know who Luka is? Google that [Luka Megurine Vocaloid] too.) **story line, at the start, but I've added some Alphonse Angst elements. So, for those of you who don't know about the game, RoyEd is almost completely totally cannon, so that's in here too. Just a smidge. Don't let it scare you away. Got that? ROYED.**

Ed was woken ,once again, in the ungodly hours just before dawn by screams of terror. The first one roused him groggily, and the second had him staring at the ceiling disconnectedly. The third, and his eyes flew open, and his instincts kicked in, and he jumped out of bed, flinging the covers across the room. He had run halfway down the hallway before he realized that he was wearing his super embarrassing Alu-chan pyjamas, and had his left hand pressed against his right. He stopped, and separated his hands, sighing.

_It was just a dream…_

Alphonse screamed again.

This time Ed crashed right into his brother's room, untamed hair flying around his head, golden eyes flaming, pink pyjamas adding to his crushed masculinity (damn Roy Mustang), and scanned the room for burglars, murders, rapists, and terrorists. When he found nothing but a desk and a dresser, Ed assumed that nothing physical was in need of a beating (but you never know, that cat statue on Al's dresser still gave Ed the creeps). He turned to Al.

Glassy, feverish eyes stared at nothing next to Ed's shoulder. Pale, thin legs were tangled in sweaty sheets, and bruised, bony hands were clutching the edge of the bed. Al's mouth was slightly open, and he was struggling to regain breath. Ed grabbed his younger brother's shoulders.

"Al, calm down."

"I-I can see her, Brother!"

Ed sighed, "Who? Mom again?"

"Sh-she's coming! Just-just a little further!"

"Alphonse…?"

"I-I have her! I-I have her Ed!"

Ed stared at him. They had been through this routine so many times it seemed like a joke. Every time, Al would sound so happy, so triumphant, and then Ed would have to watch as his little brother had his body and soul ripped apart, and as he became literally nothing but a circle of blood.

Alphonse was smiling widely, transfixed, at something Ed couldn't see. Then, Al's smile vanished, and his unfocused eyes drifted to his hand. Although it was still solid and quite real, Ed winced as Al screamed again.

"What?!"

"Al, wake up."

"W-wait! No, what's happening? I don't understand! What-"

Al took a small breath, eyes stretching far wider than Ed would have thought possible, and Ed felt his soul plummet. Even though he had been expecting it, his blood still froze at the scream.

This one was always the worst. Ed had no idea what was actually happening to Al, but whatever it was, Ed was trapped in the physical world, nothing more than human, and was completely unable to help his little brother.

It made him feel trapped.

Al stopped screaming. His head slumped to his chest, and the beads of sweat stopped rolling down his face. Ed released his shoulders, noticing he had been clutching them so tightly it must have been painful. Al's breathing had evened, but Ed still stood on edge. Al moaned a bit, and his eyes flickered open again.

"Brother…?"

"Good morning."

"Mph."

Al rubbed his eyes sleepily, and Ed took the opportunity to sit down on the edge of the bed and braid his hair. The sat like that for a while, as Al sorted out his mind and Ed did what he could to make himself slightly presentable. After about ten minutes of fussing over Al's hair as well as his own, Ed said,

"Do you want breakfast? I can make eggs, and I promise I won't burn them this time. Roy's been teaching me how to cook, and-"

"Brother."

"Yeah?"

"Why does this happen to me?"

Ed was silent for a moment.


End file.
